PDP accuses defence minister of diverting military funds for APC campaign

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, of diverting funds meant for the military equipment and welfare of the nation’s soldiers fighting insurgency in the northeast, to produce partisan materials for All Progressives Congress (APC) re-election campaign.

A statement issued by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary in Abuja on Monday, alleged that the minister diverted part of the military funds to produce APC’s campaign materials including an electronic momento book, “on which he ascribed credit to himself and the APC, while our soldiers suffer neglect in the war front.”

The party maintained that the placing of APC logo alongside that of the Ministry of Defence on the memento confirms its position “that the Buhari Presidency has compromised our defence architecture for Mr President’s re-election project.”

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The statement added: “Our party considers it insensitive and a gross impunity for the Minister of Defence to be engaging in patronising souveniers for President Buhari at a time when our soldiers are being killed in their numbers.

“It is also instructive to note that President Muhammadu Buhari, as Mr Integrity, has not reprimanded the minister, ostensibly, given that the diversion of public funds for his re-election campaign is now a policy of the APC and the Buhari Presidency.

“Nigerians can now see how the Buhari Presidency and the APC have turned the Ministry of Defence into their Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) to fund their re-election, at the detriment of our citizens who are being daily attacked by insurgents and marauders in various parts of our country.

“There is a fixation in the Buhari Presidency on winning the 2019 elections at all cost even at the expense of the lives of Nigerians.”

The PDP noted that “with these revelations, the APC has proven to be a soulless mob, which has no interest in the good of our nation, but desperate to hang onto power by all means.”

The party, therefore, called for an open investigation into the handling of military funds “to unravel those benefitting from the racket especially given allegation that some persons close to the President are being used as conduits to fritter public funds for President Buhari’s re-election and their wasteful lifestyles.